It is said that in the old days there was in Egypt a just and upright sultan who loved the poor and would sit with men of learning. He had an intelligent and experienced vizier, with a knowledge of affairs and of administration. This vizier was a very old man and he had two sons, fair as moons, unequalled in comeliness and beauty. The name of the elder was Shams al-Din Muhammad, while the younger was Nur al-Din ‘Ali. Nur al-Din was more conspicuously graceful and handsome than his brother, so much so that his fame had spread in other lands, and people came to Egypt to see his beauty.
It then happened that their father died. He was mourned by the sultan, who went to the sons, brought them close to him and gave them robes of honour. ‘Do not be distressed,’ he said, ‘for you will take your father’s place.’ This delighted them and they kissed the ground in front of him. After a month of mourning for their father, they entered into office as joint viziers, sharing between themselves the power that had been in their father’s hands, with one of them accompanying the sultan whenever he went on his travels.
It happened that the sultan was about to leave on a journey in the morning and it was the turn of the elder brother to go with him. On the night before, the two brothers were talking together and the elder said to the younger: ‘Brother, it is my intention that you and I should marry on the same night.’ ‘Do what you want,’ said his brother, ‘for I agree to your suggestion.’ When they had made this agreement, the elder said: ‘If God so decrees, we shall marry two girls and consummate the marriage on one and the same night. Then they will give birth on the same day and, God willing, your wife will produce a boy and mine a girl. We shall then marry them to each other and they will be husband and wife.’ ‘What dowry will you ask from my son for your daughter?’ asked Nur al-Din. ‘I shall take from your son,’ replied Shams al-Din, ‘three thousand dinars, three orchards and three estates. On no other terms will the marriage contract be valid.’
When he heard this, Nur al-Din said: ‘What is this dowry that you want to impose as a condition on my son? Don’t you know that we two are brothers and that both of us, by God’s grace, are joint viziers, equal in rank? You should give your daughter to my son without asking for any dowry at all, and if there must be one, then it should be fixed at something that will merely show people that a payment has been made. You know that the male is better than the female. My son is a male and it is through him and not through your daughter that we shall be remembered.’ ‘What about my daughter, then?’ asked Shams al-Din. ‘It will not be through her that we shall be remembered among the emirs,’ his brother told him, and added: ‘You want to deal with me like the man in the story who approached one of his friends to ask for something. “I swear by the Name of God,” said his friend, “that I shall do what you ask, but tomorrow.” In reply, the other recited:
If favours are put off until next day,
For those who know, that is rejection.’
Shams al-Din said: ‘I see that you are selling me short and making out that your son is better than my daughter. It is clear that you lack intelligence and have no manners. You talk about our shared vizierate, but I only let you share out of pity for you, so that you might help me as an assistant and I might not cause you disappointment. Now, by God, after what you have said, I shall not marry my daughter to your son, even if you were to pay out her weight in gold.’ Nur al-Din was angry when he heard this and said: ‘I’m no longer willing to marry my son to your daughter.’ ‘And I’m not prepared to accept him as a husband for her,’ repeated Shams al-Din, adding: ‘Were I not going off on a journey I would make an example of you, but when I get back, I shall let you see what my honour requires.’
On hearing what his brother had to say, Nur al-Din was beside himself with anger, but he managed to conceal this. The two of them spent the night in separate quarters and in the morning the sultan set out on his journey, going by Giza and making for the Pyramids, accompanied by the vizier Shams al-Din. As for Shams al-Din’s brother, Nur al-Din, after spending the night in a furious rage, he got up and performed the morning prayer. Then he went to his strongroom and, taking out a small pair of saddlebags, he filled them with gold. Remembering his brother’s contemptuous remarks, he started to recite these lines:
Go, and you will replace the one you leave behind;
Work hard, for in this lies life’s pleasure.
The stay-at-home is humble, arriving at no goal
Except distress, so leave your land and go.
I see that water left to stand goes bad;
If it flows, it is sweet, but if not, it is not.
Were the full moon not to wane,
The watcher would not always follow it.
Lions that do not leave their lair will find no prey;
Arrows not shot from bows can strike no target.
Gold dust when in the mine is worth no more than earth,
And aloes wood in its own land is merely used for fires.
When taken from the mine, gold is a precious object of demand,
While elsewhere in the world it is outranked by aloes wood.
When Nur al-Din had finished these lines, he told one of his servants to prepare the official mule with its quilted saddle. This beast, coloured like a starling, had a high, dome-like back; its saddle was of gold and its stirrups of Indian steel; its trappings were like those of the Chosroes; and it looked like a bride unveiled. Nur al-Din ordered that a silk carpet and a prayer rug should be put on it, with the saddlebags being placed under the rug. He then told his servants and slaves that he was going on a pleasure trip outside the city. ‘I shall go towards Qalyub,’ he said, ‘and spend three nights away. None of you are to follow me, for I am feeling depressed.’
He quickly mounted the mule, taking with him only a few provisions, and he then left Cairo, making for open country. By noon he had reached Bilbais, where he dismounted, rested and allowed the mule to rest too. He took and ate some of his provisions, and in Bilbais he bought more food for himself and fodder for his mule. He then set out into the country, and when night fell, he had come to a place called al-Sa‘diya. Here he spent the night, getting out some food, placing the saddlebags beneath his head and spreading out the carpet. He slept there in the desert, still consumed with anger, and after his night’s sleep, he rode off in the morning, urging on his mule until he came to Aleppo. There he stayed for three days in one of the khans, looking around the place at his leisure until both he and the mule were rested. Then he decided to move on and, mounting his mule, he rode out of the city without knowing where he was heading. His journey continued until, without knowing where he was, he reached Basra. He stopped at a khan, unloaded the saddlebags from the mule and spread out the prayer mat. He then handed over the mule with all its gear to the gatekeeper of the khan, asking him to exercise it, which he did.
It happened that the vizier of Basra was sitting at the window of his palace. He looked at the mule with its costly trappings and thought that it might be a ceremonial beast, the mount of viziers or kings. Perplexed by this, he told one of his servants to bring him the gatekeeper of the city. The servant did as he was told, and the gatekeeper came to him and kissed the ground. The vizier, who was a very old man, asked him who the mule’s owner might be and what he was like. ‘Master,’ said the gatekeeper, ‘the owner of this mule is a very young man of the merchant class, impressive and dignified, with elegant manners, the son of a merchant.’ On hearing this, the vizier got up and after riding to the khan, he approached Nur al-Din, who, seeing him coming, rose to meet him. He greeted the vizier, who, in turn, welcomed him, dismounted from his horse, and embraced him, making him sit beside him. ‘My son,’ he said, ‘where have you come from and what do you want?’ ‘Master,’ replied Nur al-Din, ‘I have come from Cairo. I was the son of a vizier there, but my father moved from this world to the mercy of Almighty God.’ He then told his story from beginning to end, adding: ‘I have made up my mind that I shall never return until I have passed through every city and every land.’ ‘My son,’ said the vizier when he heard this, ‘do not obey the promptings of pride or you will destroy yourself. The lands are desolate and I am afraid lest Time bring misfortunes on you.’
He then had Nur al-Din’s saddlebags placed on the mule and, taking the carpet and the prayer mat, he brought him to his house where he lodged him in elegant quarters and showed him honour, kindness and much affection. ‘My boy,’ he said to him, ‘I am an old man and I have no son, but God has provided me with a daughter who is your match in beauty and whose hand I have refused to many suitors. I have conceived love for you in my heart and so I ask whether you would be willing to take her to serve you, while you become her husband. If you accept, I shall bring you to the sultan of Basra and tell him that you are the son of my brother, and I shall get him to appoint you as his vizier in my place. I shall then stay at home, for I am an old man.’
When Nur al-Din heard what he had to say, he bowed his head and said: ‘To hear is to obey.’ The vizier was delighted and he told his servants to set out food and to decorate the main reception hall where the weddings of the emirs were held. He collected his friends and invited the great officials of state together with the merchants of Basra. When they came, he told them: ‘I had a brother, the vizier of Egypt. God provided him with two sons, while, as you know, He gave me a daughter. My brother had enjoined me to marry her to one of his sons. I agreed to this, and when the appropriate time for marriage came, he sent me one of his sons – this young man who is here with us. Now that he has arrived, I want to draw up the marriage contract between him and my daughter that the marriage may be consummated here, for he has a greater right to her hand than a stranger. After that, if he wants he can stay here, or if he prefers to leave, I shall send him and his wife off to his father.’
Everyone there approved of the plan and, looking at Nur al-Din, they admired what they saw. The vizier then brought in the qadis and the notaries, who drew up the contract. Incense was scattered, sugared drinks served and rosewater sprinkled, after which the guests left. The vizier then told his servants to take Nur al-Din to the baths. He gave him a special robe of his own and sent him towels, bowls and censers, together with everything else that he might need. When he left the baths wearing the robes, he was like the moon when it is full on the fourteenth night. He mounted his mule and rode on until he reached the vizier’s palace, where he dismounted. Entering the vizier’s presence, he kissed his hand and was welcomed. The vizier got up to greet him, saying: ‘Go in to your wife tonight and tomorrow I will take you to the sultan. I hope that God will grant you every blessing.’ Nur al-Din then did as the vizier had said.
So much for him, but as for Shams al-Din, his brother, when he came back from his journey with the sultan of Cairo and failed to find Nur al-Din, he asked the servants about him. They replied: ‘The day that you left with the sultan, he mounted his mule with its ceremonial trappings and told us that he was going in the direction of Qalyub and would be away for a day or two. No one was to follow him, for he was depressed, and from that day to this we have heard no news of him.’ Shams al-Din was disturbed by the departure of his brother and bitterly sorry to have lost him. ‘This is because of my angry words to him that night,’ he said to himself. ‘He must have taken them to heart and gone off on his travels. I must send after him.’ He went to the sultan and told him what had happened, and he then wrote notes and posted instructions to his agents throughout the lands. As it happened, however, in the twenty days that Shams al-Din had been away with the sultan, Nur al-Din had travelled to distant regions, and although Shams al-Din’s agents searched, they had to come back with no news of him. Shams al-Din then despaired of his brother and said: ‘I went too far in what I said to him about our children’s marriage. I wish that I hadn’t done this; it was due to my stupidity and mismanagement.’
Shortly after this, he proposed to the daughter of a Cairene merchant and after the contract had been drawn up, the marriage was consummated. As it happened, this coincided with the wedding of Nur al-Din to the daughter of the vizier of Basra, as God Almighty had willed it, in order that what He had decreed might be fulfilled among His creatures. What the brothers had said in their conversation came about, in that both their wives became pregnant. The wife of Shams al-Din, the Egyptian vizier, gave birth to the most beautiful girl who had ever been seen in Cairo, while the wife of Nur al-Din gave birth to a son as handsome as any of the people of his age. He was as the poet described:
A slender youth whose hair and whose forehead
Leave mankind to enjoy both dark and light.
Find no fault with the mole upon his cheek;
Every corn-poppy has its own black spot.
Another poet has produced these lines:
If beauty comes to be measured against him,
It must hang down its head in shame.
Asked: ‘Have you ever seen a sight like this?’
It answers: ‘No, I never have.’
Nur al-Din named his son Badr al-Din Hasan and his grandfather was overjoyed at his birth and gave banquets and feasts worthy of the sons of kings. He then took Nur al-Din and brought him to the sultan. When he appeared before the sultan, Nur al-Din kissed the ground and, being as eloquent as he was courageous, handsome and generous, he recited:
My lord, may your prosperity endure,
And may you live while dark and dawn remain.
When men talk of your high-mindedness,
Time itself dances as it claps its hands.
The sultan rose to greet his two visitors, thanked Nur al-Din for what he had said and asked the vizier who he was. The vizier told him Nur al-Din’s story from beginning to end, adding that he was his own nephew. ‘How can he be your brother’s son,’ asked the sultan, ‘when we have never heard of him?’ ‘My lord, the sultan,’ replied the vizier, ‘I had a brother who was vizier of Egypt. On his death, he left two sons, the elder of whom has taken his father’s place as vizier, while this, the younger son, has come to me. I swore that I would marry my daughter to no one else, and when he arrived, this is what I did. He is young and I am very old. I am hard of hearing and my control of affairs is weak, and so I would ask my master to appoint him in my place. He is my nephew, the husband of my daughter, someone well fitted to be vizier, as he is a man of judgement and a good manager.’
The sultan found what he saw of Nur al-Din to be to his taste and so he granted the vizier’s request and promoted Nur al-Din to the vizierate. On his orders, the new vizier was given a robe of honour and one of the special mules, as well as pay and allowances. He kissed the sultan’s hand and he and his father-in-law went back joyfully to their house, saying: ‘This is due to the good luck brought by baby Hasan.’ The next day, Nur al-Din went to the sultan, kissed the ground and recited:
Happiness is renewed on every day
Together with good fortune, confounding envious schemes.
May the whiteness of your days not cease,
While the days of your enemies are black.
The sultan ordered him to take the vizier’s seat, which he did, and he then took in hand the duties of his office, investigating the affairs of the people and their lawsuits, as is the habit of viziers. Watching him, the sultan was astonished at what he was doing, his intelligence and powers of administration, all of which won him the sultan’s affection and his intimate regard. When the court was dismissed, Nur al-Din went home and delighted his father-in-law by telling him what had happened. The young man continued to act as vizier until, both by night and by day, he became inseparable from the sultan. His pay and allowances were increased and he became rich; he owned shops that traded on his account, slaves, mamluks, and many flourishing estates with water wheels and gardens.
When Hasan was four years old, the old vizier, Nur al-Din’s father-in-law, died and Nur al-Din gave him the most lavish of funerals. He then concerned himself with the upbringing of his son, and when the boy grew strong and had reached the age of seven, his father brought in a tutor to teach him at home, telling the man to give him the best instruction. The tutor taught Hasan to read and made him commit to heart many useful branches of learning, as well as getting him to memorize the Quran, over a period of years.
Hasan became ever more beautiful and well formed, as the poet puts it:
A moon reaches its full in the heavens of his beauty,
While the sun shines from his blooming cheeks.
All beauty is his and it is as though
All that is fair in men derives from him.
He was brought up in his father’s palace, which throughout his early years he never left, until one day his father took him, clothed him in one of his most splendid robes, mounted him up on one of the best of his mules and brought him to the sultan. The sultan looked at the boy with admiration and felt affection for him. As for the townspeople, when he passed for the first time on his way to the sultan with his father, they were astonished at his beauty and they sat in the street waiting for him to come back so that they could have the pleasure of looking at his comely and well-shaped form. This was as the poet puts it:
One night as the astronomer watched, he saw
The form of a graceful youth wandering in his twin robes.
He observed how Gemini had spread for him
The graceful beauty that his flanks displayed.
Saturn had granted him black hair,
Colouring his temples with the shade of musk.
From Mars derived the redness of his cheeks,
While Sagittarius shot arrows from his eyelids.
Mercury supplied keenness of mind,
And the Bear forbade slanderers to look at him.
The astronomer was bewildered at what he saw
And then ran forward to kiss the earth before him.*
When the sultan saw Hasan, he conferred his favour and affection on him and told his father that he must always, and without fail, bring the boy with him to court. ‘To hear is to obey,’ replied Nur al-Din, after which he took him back home. Every day from then on he went with him to the sultan until the boy reached the age of fifteen. It was then that Nur al-Din fell ill and, sending for his son, he said: ‘Know, my son, that this world is transitory, while the next world is eternal. I wish to give you various injunctions, so try to understand what I have to say and take heed of it.’ He then started to tell Hasan how to deal well with people and how to manage his affairs. Then he remembered his brother and his native land and he wept for the loss of loved ones. Wiping away his tears, he recited:
If I complain of distance, what am I to say,
And if I feel longing, what way of escape is there?
I might send messengers to speak for me,
But none of them can convey a lover’s complaint.
I might show endurance, but after the beloved’s loss
The life span of the lover is not long.
Nothing is left except yearning and grief,
Together with tears that stream down my cheeks.
Those whom I love are absent from my sight,
But they are found still settled in my heart.
Do you not see, though I have long been spurned,
My covenant is subject to no change?
Has her distance led you to forget your love?
Have tears and fasting given you a cure?
We are of the same clan, both you and I,
But you still try me with long-lasting censure.
When Nur al-Din, in tears, had finished reciting this, he turned to his son and said: ‘Before I give you my injunctions, you must know that you have an uncle who is vizier of Egypt. I parted from him and left him without his leave. Take a scroll of paper and write down what I shall dictate.’ Hasan took the paper and started to write, while his father dictated an account of what had happened to him from start to finish. He noted the date of the consummation of his marriage with the old vizier’s daughter, explaining how he had arrived at Basra and met his father-in-law, adding: ‘Many years have passed since the day of our quarrel. This is what I have written to him, and may God now be with him in my stead.’
He folded the letter, sealed it, and said: ‘Hasan, my son, keep this testament, for in it is an account of your origin and your genealogy. If anything happens to you, go to Egypt, ask for your uncle and tell him that I have died in a foreign land, longing for him.’ Hasan took the paper, folded it and sewed it up in a fold of material, before placing it in the wrapper of his turban, all the while shedding tears at the thought of being parted from his father while he himself was still young. Nur al-Din then said: ‘I give you five injunctions. The first is: do not be on intimate terms with anyone, for in this way you will be safe from the evil they may do you. Safety lies in seclusion, so do not be too familiar with anyone. I have heard what the poet says:
There is no one in this age of yours for whose friendship you can hope;
When Time is harsh to you, no friend will stay faithful.
Live alone and choose no one in whom to trust.
This, then, is my advice; it is enough.
The second injunction, my son, is to injure no man, lest Time injure you, for one day it will favour you and the next day it will harm you, and this world is a loan to be repaid. I have heard what the poet says:
Act slowly; do not rush to what you want.
Be merciful and be known for your mercy.
No power surpasses that of God,
And every wrongdoer will be oppressed.
The third injunction is to keep silent and to concern yourself with your own faults and not with those of others. The saying goes: “Whoever stays silent, escapes,” and I have heard the poet say:
Silence is an adornment which affords you safety,
But if you speak, refrain from babble.
If you regret your silence once,
You will regret having spoken many times.
The fourth injunction, my son, is this: be on your guard against drinking wine, for wine is the root of all discord and it carries away men’s wits, so I repeat, guard against it. I have heard the poet say:
I gave up drinking wine and have become
A source of guidance for its censurers.
Drink makes the drunken stray from the right path,
And opens the door to evil.
The fifth injunction is this: guard your wealth and it will guard you; protect it and it will protect you. Do not overspend or you will find yourself in need of help from the most insignificant people. Look after your money, for it will be a salve for your wounds. I have heard the poet say:
If I lack money, then I have no friends,
But all men are my friends when I have wealth.
How many friends have helped me spend,
But when the money went, they all deserted me.’
Nur al-Din went on delivering his injunctions to Hasan until his soul left his body, after which Hasan stayed at home mourning for him, with the sultan and all the emirs joining in his grief. His mourning extended for two months after the funeral, during which time he did not ride out, attend court or present himself before the sultan. This earned him the sultan’s anger, as a result of which one of the chamberlains was appointed vizier in his place, with orders to set his seal on Nur al-Din’s properties, wealth, buildings and possessions.
The new vizier set out to do this and to arrest Hasan and take him to the sultan to deal with the young man as he saw fit. Among his soldiers was one of the dead vizier’s mamluks, and when he heard what was about to happen, he quickly rode to Hasan, and found him sitting by the door of his house, broken-hearted and with his head bowed in sorrow. The mamluk dismounted, kissed his hand and said: ‘My master and son of my master, quick, quick, run away before you are doomed.’ ‘What is the matter?’ asked Hasan, trembling. ‘The sultan is angry with you and has ordered your arrest,’ replied the mamluk. ‘Misfortune is hot on my heels, so flee for your life.’ ‘Is there time for me to go inside to fetch some money to help me in exile?’ Hasan asked. ‘Get up now, master,’ urged the mamluk, ‘and leave at once.’
So Hasan got up, reciting these lines:
If you meet injustice, save your life
And let the house lament its builders.
You can replace the country that you lose,
But there is no replacement for your life.
Send out no messenger on any grave affair,
For only you yourself will give you good advice.
The lion’s neck is only thick
Because it looks after all its own affairs.*
Then, heeding the mamluk’s warning, he covered his head with the skirt of his robe and walked off until he got outside the city. He heard the people saying that the sultan had sent the new vizier to the old vizier’s house, to set his seal on his wealth and his properties and to arrest his son, Hasan, in order to bring him for execution, and they were sorry for this because of the young man’s beauty.
On hearing what they were saying, Hasan left the city immediately, without knowing where he was going, until fate led him to his father’s grave. He entered the cemetery and made his way among the tombs until he reached that of his father. There he sat down, unwinding the skirt of his robe from his head. On the cloth were embroidered in gold the lines:
You whose face gleams
Like stars and dew,
May your fame last for ever
And your exalted glory stay eternally.
As he was sitting there, a Jew, who appeared to be a money-changer, came up to him, carrying saddlebags containing a great quantity of gold. After approaching him, this Jew said: ‘Master, why is it that I see that you are drained of colour?’ Hasan replied: ‘I was sleeping just now, when in a dream I saw my father reproaching me for not having visited him. I got up in alarm, and I was afraid that if I did not pay him a visit before the end of the day, it might go hard with me.’ ‘Master,’ said the Jew, ‘your father sent out trading ships, some of which have just arrived and I want to buy the cargo of the first of them from you for this thousand dinars of gold.’ He then brought out a purse filled with gold, from which he counted out a thousand dinars and gave them to Hasan in return for which he asked for a signed bill of sale. Hasan took a piece of paper, on which he wrote: ‘The writer of this note, Hasan, son of Nur al-Din, has sold to Ishaq the Jew for a thousand dinars the cargo of the first of his father’s ships to come to port, the sale price having been paid in advance.’
After Ishaq had taken the note, Hasan began to weep as he remembered the glory that had been his, and he recited:
The dwelling is no dwelling since you left,
And since you left, we have no neighbours there.
My old familiar friends are now no friends,
Nor are the moons still moons.
You left and this has made the world a wilderness,
And the wide lands are now all dark.
Would that the crow that croaked of your going
Were stripped of feathers and could find no nest.
I have scant store of patience. Now that you have gone,
My body is gaunt and many a veil is torn.
Do you think that those past nights will ever come again
As we once knew them, and the same home shelter us?
He wept bitterly, and as night drew in, he rested his head on his father’s tomb and fell asleep. As he slept, the moon rose: his head slipped from the tombstone and he slept on his back, with his face gleaming in the moonlight. It so happened that the cemetery was frequented by jinn who believed in God. A jinniya came and looked at the sleeping Hasan and, struck by wonder at his beauty, she exclaimed: ‘Glory to God, it is as though this youth is one of the children of Paradise.’ She then flew off, making her customary circuit in the air. Seeing an ‘ifrit flying by, she greeted him and asked him where he had come from. ‘From Cairo,’ he said, and she asked: ‘Would you like to go with me to see the beauty of this youth asleep in the cemetery?’ The ‘ifrit agreed and they flew down to the tomb. ‘Have you ever in your life seen anything to match this?’ the jinniya asked. ‘Glory be to the Matchless God!’ the ‘ifrit exclaimed. ‘But sister,’ he added, ‘would you like me to tell you what I have seen?’ ‘What was that?’ she asked. ‘I have seen someone who is like this youth in the land of Egypt. This is the daughter of Shams al-Din, a girl about twenty years old, beautiful, graceful, splendid, perfectly formed and proportioned. When she passed this age, the sultan of Egypt learned of her, sent for Shams al-Din, her father, and said: “Vizier, I hear that you have a daughter and I would like to ask you for her hand in marriage.” “My master,” said Shams al-Din, “accept my excuse and have pity on the tears that I must shed. You know that my brother Nur al-Din left us and went away we don’t know where. He was my partner in the vizierate and the reason that he left in anger was that we had sat talking about marriage and children and this caused the quarrel. From the day that her mother gave birth to her, some eighteen years ago, I have sworn that I shall marry my daughter to none but my brother’s son. A short time ago, I heard that my brother married the daughter of the vizier of Basra, who bore him a son, and out of respect for my brother I shall marry my daughter to no other man. I have noted the date of my own marriage, my wife’s pregnancy and the birth of this girl. She is the destined bride of her cousin; while for the sultan there are girls aplenty.”
‘When he heard this, the sultan was furiously angry and said: “When someone like me asks for a girl’s hand from a man like you, do you refuse to give her to me and put forward an empty excuse? I swear that I shall marry her off to the meanest of my servants to spite you.” The sultan had a hunchbacked groom, with a hump on his chest and another on his back. He ordered this man to be brought to him and he has drawn up a contract of forced marriage between him and Shams al-Din’s daughter, ordering him to consummate the marriage tonight. The sultan is providing the groom with a wedding procession and when I left him he was surrounded by the sultan’s mamluks, who were lighting candles around him and making fun of him at the door of the baths. Shams al-Din’s daughter, who bears the greatest resemblance to this young man, is sitting weeping among her nurses and maids, for her father has been ordered not to go to her. I have never seen anything more disgusting than the hunchback, while the girl is even more lovely than this youth.’
The jinniya replied: ‘You are lying, for this young man is the most beautiful of all the people of his age.’ The ‘ifrit contradicted her, saying: ‘By God, sister, the girl is more lovely than he is, but he is the only fit mate for her, for they resemble one another like siblings or cousins. How sad will be her fate with the hunchback!’ ‘My brother,’ said the jinniya, ‘let us lift him from beneath and carry him to the girl you are talking about to see which of them is the more beautiful.’ ‘To hear is to obey,’ replied the ‘ifrit. ‘You are right, and there can be no better plan, so I shall carry him myself.’ This he did, flying off into the air with Hasan, while the jinniya at his heels kept pace with him until he came to land in Cairo, where he set Hasan down on a bench and roused him.
When Hasan awoke and found that he was not by his father’s grave in Basra, he looked right and left and discovered that he was in some other city. He was about to cry out when the ‘ifrit struck him. He had brought for him a splendid robe and made him put it on. Then he lit a candle for him, saying: ‘Know that I have brought you here and am going to do you a favour for God’s sake. Take this candle and go to these baths, where you are to mix with the people and walk along with them until you reach the bridal hall. Then go on ahead, entering the hall without fear, and once you are inside, stand to the right of the hunchbacked bridegroom. Whenever any of the maids, singing girls and attendants approaches you, put your hand in your pocket, which you will find filled with gold. Take a handful of the gold and throw it to them: you needn’t fear that when you do this you will ever find your pocket empty, so you can scatter coins for everyone who comes up. Put your trust in your Creator, for this does not come about through any power of yours but at God’s command.’
When Hasan heard what the ‘ifrit had to say, he wondered who the bride might be and why the ‘ifrit was doing him such a favour, but he lit the candle, went to the baths and found the hunchbacked bridegroom mounted on a horse. He joined the crowd in all the splendour of his beauty, wearing, as has been described, a tarboosh with a white covering and a mantle woven with gold. He continued to walk in the bridal procession and every time the singing girls stopped so that people might throw them money, he would put his hand in his pocket, find it filled with gold and, to the girls’ astonishment, he would throw a handful into their tambourines, filling these up with dinars. His beauty moved the crowd, and they went on like this until they reached the house of Shams al-Din. Here the chamberlains turned back the crowd and would not let them enter, but the singing girls said: ‘By God, we will not go in unless this young man comes too, for he has overwhelmed us with his generosity and we will not help display the bride unless he is there.’
At that, they entered the festal hall; Hasan was seated to the right of the hunchbacked bridegroom, while the wives of the emirs, viziers and chamberlains were drawn up in two lines, each carrying a large lighted candle and wearing a mouth-veil. The lines were drawn up to the right and left beneath the bridal throne, extending to the top of the hall beside the room from which the bride was to emerge. When the ladies saw Hasan’s graceful beauty, with his face gleaming like the crescent moon, they were all drawn to him. The singing girls told them that the handsome young man had given them nothing but red gold: ‘So be sure to serve him as best you can and do whatever he says.’ The ladies crowded around him with their torches, looking at his beauty and envying him his gracefulness. There was not one of them who did not wish that they could enjoy his embrace for an hour or a year, and so far out of their senses were they that they let down their veils, exclaiming: ‘Happy is she who has this young man as husband or master.’ They then cursed the hunchback and the one who was responsible for his marriage to so beautiful a girl, while every blessing that they invoked upon Hasan was matched by a curse for the hunchback.
Then the singing girls beat their tambourines; the flutes shrilled and out came the maids with Shams al-Din’s daughter in the middle of them.They had covered her with perfume, dressed her hair beautifully and scented it, and robed her in clothes splendid enough for the kings of Persia. On top of these she wore a gown woven with red gold on which were embroidered pictures of beasts and birds, and round her throat was a Yemeni necklace worth thousands of dinars, comprising gemstones such as no king of Yemen or Byzantine emperor had ever possessed. She was like the moon when it is full on the fourteenth night, and when she came forward she was like a houri of Paradise – praise be to God, Who created her in beauty. The ladies surrounding her were like stars, while in their midst she was like the moon shining through clouds. Hasan was sitting there, the cynosure of all eyes, when she appeared and moved forward, swaying as she did so.
The hunchbacked bridegroom rose to greet her, but she turned from him and moved away until she stood before her cousin Hasan. The people laughed, and when they saw that she had turned towards Hasan, they shouted, while the singing girls raised a cry. Hasan put his hand in his pocket and, to their joy, he threw a handful of gold once more into their tambourines. ‘Would that this was your bride,’ they said. He laughed, and all those there pressed around him, while the bridegroom was left on his own, sitting hunched up like a monkey. Every time they tried to light a candle for him, he could not keep it alight, and as he could find nothing to say, he sat in the darkness looking down at the floor.
As for Hasan, he was confronted by people carrying candles, and when he looked at the bridegroom sitting alone in the shadows, he was filled with perplexity and astonishment, but this changed to joy and delight when he looked at his cousin. He saw her face shining radiantly in the candlelight, and he looked at the red satin dress that she was wearing, the first to be removed by her maids. As they unveiled her, this allowed Hasan to see her, swaying as she moved with artful coquetry, bewitching both men and women, and fitting the description of the poet:
A sun on a branch set in a sand hill,
Appearing in a dress of pomegranate blossom –
She let me drink the wine of her lips and with the gift
Of her cheeks she quenched the greatest fire.
The maids then changed her dress and clothed her in a blue gown, so that she looked like the gleaming full moon, with her black hair, smooth cheeks, smiling mouth, jutting breasts and beautiful hands and wrists.When they showed her in this second dress, she was as the sublime poets have written:
She came forward in a gown of azure blue,
The colour of the sky.
I looked and saw within this gown
A summer moon set in a winter night.
They then changed that for another dress, using some of her hair as a veil and letting the remaining long, black locks hang loose. The length and blackness of this hair resembled the darkness of night and she shot at hearts with the magic arrows of her eyes. Of the third dress in which they showed her, the poet has written:
Veiled by hair draped over cheeks,
She was a temptation strong as burning fire.
I said: ‘You have used night to veil the dawn.’
‘No,’ she replied, ‘but I have veiled the moon in darkness.’
They then showed her in a fourth dress, and she came forward like the rising sun, swaying coquettishly and looking from side to side like a gazelle, while transfixing hearts with the arrows of her eyelids, as the poet has said:
The watchers saw a sun of loveliness,
Radiant in coquetry, adorned with bashfulness.
She turned her smiling face to the sun of day,
Since when the sun has veiled itself in cloud.
In her fifth dress, the adorable girl was like the branch of a ban tree or a thirsty gazelle. Her curls crept like scorpions and she showed the wonders of her beauty as she shook her hips and displayed the locks of hair covering her temples, as has been described in the lines:
She appeared as the full moon on a lucky night,
With tender hands and slender figure.
Her eye enslaves men with its loveliness;
The redness of her cheeks rivals the ruby.
Her black hair falls over her hips;
Beware the snakes that form those curling locks.
Her flanks are soft, but though they may be smooth,
Her heart is harder than the solid rock.
Her eyebrows shoot the arrows of her glance.
Even from far away, they strike unerringly.
If we embrace, I press against her belt,
But her breasts keep me from holding her too close.
Oh for her beauty which surpasses every grace!
Oh for her figure which shames the tender bough!
The sixth dress in which they showed her was green. Her upright posture put to shame the brown spear and her comeliness surpassed that of the beauties of every land. Her gleaming face outshone the shining moon; beauty yielded to her every wish; she captivated the boughs with her softness and suppleness, and she shattered hearts with her qualities, as has been described in the lines:
A girl trained in shrewdness –
You see that the sun is borrowed from her cheeks.
She came in a green dress,
Like pomegranate blossom veiled by leaves.
I asked her for its name and her reply
Was phrased with elegance:
‘With it I cut men’s hearts and so
The name I give it is “the bitter cut”.’
The seventh dress in which they displayed her was part safflower red and part saffron. As the poet has said:
She sways in a dress part safflower, part saffron,
Scented with ambergris and musk and sandalwood –
A slender girl; youth urges her to rise;
Her buttocks tell her: ‘Sit or move slowly.’
If I ask her for union, her beauty says:
‘Be generous,’ but coquetry says: ‘Refuse.’
When the bride opened her eyes, she said: ‘O God, make this my husband and free me from this hunchbacked groom.’ So it was that she was shown in all her seven robes to Hasan of Basra, while the hunchbacked groom was left sitting by himself. When this had been done, the guests were allowed to leave, and all the women and children who had attended the wedding went out, leaving only Hasan and the hunchback. The maids took the bride to her room to change her ornaments and her clothes and make her ready for the bridegroom. At that, the hunchback approached Hasan and said: ‘Sir, you have been kind enough to favour us with your company this evening but it is time for you to get up and go.’ ‘In the Name of God,’ said Hasan, and he got up and went out of the door. There, however, the ‘ifrit met him and told him to stop, saying: ‘When the hunchback goes out to the latrine, enter at once and sit down in the alcove. When the bride comes, tell her: “I am your husband and the sultan only played this trick on you for fear that you might be hurt by the evil eye. The man whom you saw is one of our grooms.” After this, go up to her and uncover her face. As far as we are concerned, this is a matter of honour.’
While Hasan was talking with the ‘ifrit, out came the hunchback and went to the latrine. As he sat down, the ‘ifrit in the form of a mouse emerged from the water bowl and said ‘ziq’. ‘What is the matter with you?’ said the hunchback. Then the mouse grew bigger until it became a cat, which said ‘miya, miya’, after which it grew bigger still and turned into a dog, which said ‘‘awh, ‘awh’. At this, the hunchback became frightened and said: ‘Go away, you ill-omened beast,’ but the dog grew bigger and swelled up until it became an ass, which brayed and bellowed ‘haq, haq’ in his face. The hunchback was even more frightened and called for help, but the donkey grew even larger until it was the size of a buffalo. Blocking the hunchback’s retreat, it called to him in a human voice: ‘You stinking fellow.’ The hunchback could not control his bowels and sat down on the outlet of the latrine, still wearing his clothes, and with his teeth chattering. ‘Do you find the world so narrow,’ asked the ‘ifrit, ‘that you can find no one to marry except my beloved? Answer me,’ he went on, as the hunchback stayed silent, ‘or else I shall put you in your grave.’ ‘By God,’ said the hunchback, ‘none of this is my fault. They forced me to marry the girl and I didn’t know that she had a buffalo for a lover. I repent of the match to God and to you.’ ‘I swear to you,’ said the ‘ifrit, ‘that if you leave this place or speak a single word before the sun rises, I shall kill you. At sunrise you can go on your way, but never come back to this house.’ Then he took hold of the hunchback and put him head first into the outlet of the latrine. ‘I shall leave you here,’ he said, ‘but I shall be watching over you until sunrise.’
This is what happened to the hunchback, but as for Hasan, leaving the hunchback and the ‘ifrit quarrelling, he went into the house and took his seat in the middle of the alcove. At that moment, the bride appeared, accompanied by an old woman, who said: ‘You well-made man, rise up and take what God has entrusted to you.’ Then she turned back, while the bride, whose name was Sitt al-Husn, came into the alcove. She was heartbroken, saying: ‘I shall never let him have me, even if he kills me.’ But when she entered and saw Hasan, she exclaimed: ‘Darling, are you still sitting here? I had told myself that you could share me with the hunchback.’ ‘How can the hunchback approach you?’ said Hasan. ‘And how could he share you with me?’ ‘But who is my husband,’ she asked, ‘you or he?’ ‘Sitt al-Husn,’ said Hasan, ‘we only did this as a joke to mock him. When the maids and the singing girls and your family saw your beauty being unveiled for me, they were afraid of the evil eye and your father hired this fellow for ten dinars to turn it away from us, and now he has gone.’ When Sitt al-Husn heard this from Hasan, she smiled with joy and laughed gently. ‘By God,’ she said, ‘you have quenched my fire, so I ask you to take me and crush me to your breast.’
She was without any outer clothing and when she now raised her shift up to her neck, her private parts and her buttocks were revealed. At this sight, Hasan’s passion was aroused and, getting up, he stripped off his clothes. He took the purse of gold with the thousand dinars that he had got from the Jew and wrapped it in his trousers, placing it under the end of the mattress, and he took off his turban and set it on a chair, leaving him wearing only a fine shirt embroidered with gold. At that, Sitt al-Husn went up to him and drew him to her as he drew her to him. He embraced her and placed her legs around his waist. He then set the charge, fired the cannon and demolished the fortress. He found his bride an unbored pearl and a mare that no one else had ridden, so he took her maidenhead and enjoyed her youth. Then he withdrew from her and after a restorative pause, he returned fifteen times, as a result of which she conceived.
When he had finished, he put his hand beneath her head and she did the same to him, after which they embraced and fell asleep in each other’s arms. This was as the poet has described:
Visit your love; pay no heed to the envious:
For such are of no help in love.
God in His mercy makes no finer sight
Than of two lovers on a single bed,
Embracing one another and clothed in content,
Pillowed on one another’s wrists and arms.
When hearts are joined in love,
The iron is cold on which all others strike.
When your age has provided you a single friend,
How good a friend is this! Live for this one alone.
You who blame the lovers for their love,
Have you the power to cure the sick at heart?
This is what took place between Hasan and his cousin, Sitt al-Husn. As for the ‘ifrit, he said to the jinniya: ‘Get up and go in beneath this young man so that we may take him back to where he came from lest morning overtakes us. It is almost dawn.’ The jinniya did this as Hasan slept, still wearing his shirt and nothing else, and taking hold of him she flew off. She continued on her way, while the ‘ifrit kept pace with her, but midway through their journey they were overtaken by the dawn. The muezzin called to prayer and God permitted his angels to hurl a shooting star at the ‘ifrit, who was consumed by fire. The jinniya escaped, but she set Hasan down in the place where the ‘ifrit had been struck by the star, as she was too afraid for his safety to take him any further. As fate had decreed, they had reached Damascus and it was by one of the city gates that she left him, before flying away.
When the gates were opened in the morning, the people came out and there they found a handsome youth clothed only in a shirt and a woollen skullcap. Because of his wakeful night, he was sunk in sleep. When the people saw him, they said: ‘How lucky was the one with whom this fellow spent the night, but he should have waited to put on his clothes.’ Another said: ‘They are poor fellows, these rich men’s sons. This one must have just come out of the wine shop to relieve himself, when his drunkenness got the better of him, and as he couldn’t find the place he was making for, he arrived instead at the city gate, only to find it locked. Then he must have fallen asleep here.’
As they were talking, a gust of wind blew over Hasan, lifting his shirt above his waist. Beneath it could be seen his stomach, a curved navel, and two legs and thighs like crystal. The people exclaimed in admiration and Hasan woke up to find himself by the city gate, surrounded by a crowd. ‘Where am I, good people?’ he said. ‘Why have you gathered here and what have I to do with you?’ ‘When the muezzin gave the call to morning prayer,’ they said, ‘we saw you stretched out asleep, and that is all we know about the business. Where did you sleep last night?’ ‘By God,’ replied Hasan, ‘I slept last night in Cairo.’ ‘You’ve been eating hashish,’ said one of them. ‘You’re clearly mad,’ said another. ‘You go to sleep in Cairo and in the morning here you are asleep in Damascus.’ ‘Good people,’ he replied, ‘I have not told you a lie. Last night I was in Egypt and yesterday I was in Basra.’ ‘Fine,’ said one. ‘He is mad,’ said another, and they clapped their hands over him and talked among themselves, saying: ‘What a shame for one so young, but he is undoubtedly mad.’ Then they said to him: ‘Pull yourself together and return to your senses.’ ‘Yesterday,’ insisted Hasan, ‘I was a bridegroom in Egypt.’ ‘Maybe you were dreaming,’ they said, ‘and it was in your dream that you saw this.’ Hasan thought it over to himself and said: ‘By God, that was no dream, nor did I see it in my sleep. I went there and they unveiled the bride before me, and there was a third person, a hunchback, sitting there. By God, brothers, this was not a dream, and had it been one, where is the purse of gold that I had with me and where is my turban and the rest of my clothes?’
He then got up and went into the city, with the people pressing around him and accompanying him as he made his way through the streets and markets. He then entered the shop of a cook, who had been an artful fellow, that is to say, a thief, but had been led to repent of his evil-doing by God, after which he had opened a cookshop. All the people of Damascus were afraid of him because of his former violence, and so when they saw that Hasan had gone into his shop, they dispersed in fear. The cook, looking at Hasan’s grace and beauty, felt affection for him enter his heart. ‘Where have you come from, young man?’ he said. ‘Tell me your story, for you have become dearer to me than my life.’
Hasan told him what had happened to him from beginning to end, and the cook exclaimed at how remarkable and strange it was. ‘But, my son,’ he added, ‘keep this affair concealed until God relieves your distress. Stay with me here, and I shall take you as a son, for I have none of my own.’ Hasan agreed to this and the cook went to the market and bought fine material for him, with which he clothed him. The two of them went off to the qadi and Hasan declared himself to be the cook’s son. This is how he became known in Damascus, and he sat in the shop taking the customers’ money, having settled down with the cook.
So much for him, but as for his cousin, Sitt al-Husn, when dawn broke and she awoke from her sleep, she did not find Hasan, and thinking that he must have gone to the latrine, she sat for a time waiting for him. Then in came Shams al-Din, her father, who was distressed at what the sultan had done to him and at how he had forced Sitt al-Husn to marry one of his servants, a mere groom and a hunchback. He said to himself that he would kill the girl if she had allowed that damned man to have her. So he walked to her room, stopped at the door and called out to her. ‘Here I am, father,’ she said, and she came out, swaying with joy. She kissed the ground and her face shone with ever more radiant beauty, thanks to the embrace of that gazelle-like youth.
When her father saw her in this state, he said: ‘Are you so pleased with that groom, you damned girl?’ When she heard this, she smiled and said: ‘By God, what happened yesterday was enough, with people laughing at me and shunning me because of this groom who is not worth the paring of my husband’s fingernail. I swear that never in my life have I spent a more delightful night than last night, so don’t make fun of me or remind me of that hunchback.’ When her father heard this, he glared at her in anger and said: ‘What are you talking about? It was the hunchback who spent the night with you.’ ‘For God’s sake, don’t mention him, may God curse his father, and don’t jest. The groom was hired for ten dinars and he took his fee and left. Then I arrived and when I went into the room I found my husband sitting there. This was after the singing girls had unveiled me for him and he had scattered enough red gold to enrich all the poor who were present. I passed the night in the embrace of my charming husband, with the dark eyes and the joining eyebrows.’
When her father heard this, the light before him turned to darkness. ‘You harlot,’ he said, ‘what are you saying? Where are your wits?’ ‘Father,’ she replied, ‘you have broken my heart – enough of this ill humour. This is my husband who took my virginity. He has gone to the latrine, and he has made me pregnant.’ Her father got up in astonishment and went to the latrine, where he found the hunchback with his head stuck in the hole and his legs sticking out on top. He was amazed and said: ‘Surely this is the hunchback.’ He called to the man, who mumbled in reply, thinking that it was the ‘ifrit who was speaking to him. Shams al-Din then shouted to him: ‘Speak or else I shall cut your head off with this sword.’ ‘By God, shaikh of the ‘ifrits,’ said the hunchback, ‘since you put me here I have not raised my head, and I implore you by God to be kind to me.’ ‘What are you talking about?’ said Shams al-Din when he heard this. ‘I am the father of the bride and not an ‘ifrit.’ ‘Enough of that,’ said the hunchback, ‘for you are on the way to getting me killed, so go off before the ‘ifrit who did this to me comes back. What you have done is to marry me to the mistress of buffaloes and ‘ifrits. May God curse the man who married me to her and the one who was the cause of this.’
‘Get up,’ said Shams al-Din, ‘and come out.’ ‘Do you think that I am mad,’ said the hunchback, ‘that I should go with you without the ‘ifrit’s permission? He told me to come out and leave at sunrise. So has the sun risen or not, for I can’t come out of here until it has?’ Shams al-Din then asked who had put him there. ‘I came here last night to relieve myself,’ the man replied, ‘and suddenly a mouse came out of the water and squeaked, and then it went on growing bigger and bigger until it was as large as a buffalo. It spoke to me in tones that rang through my ears, after which it left me and went away. May God curse the bride and the man who married me to her!’
Shams al-Din went up and removed him from the latrine, after which he ran off, not believing that the sun had risen, and going to the sultan, he told him what had happened to him with the ‘ifrit. As for Shams al-Din, the bride’s father, he went back in a state of perplexity, not understanding what had happened to his daughter, and he asked her to explain the matter again. She replied: ‘The bridegroom, for whom I was unveiled yesterday, spent the night with me, took my virginity and has made me pregnant. If you don’t believe me, here is his turban, in its folds, lying on the chair, and here are his other clothes underneath the bed, with something wrapped up in them, although I don’t know what it is.’ On hearing this, her father came into the alcove, where he found the turban of his nephew, Hasan. He took it in his hands, turned it over and said: ‘This is a vizier’s turban and it is of muslin.’ He then looked and saw an amulet sewn into the tarboosh, which he took and opened, and he picked up the outer clothes, in which he found the purse containing the thousand dinars. Opening it, he found inside it a sheet of paper, which he read and which turned out to be the Jew’s contract of sale, with the name of Badr al-Din Hasan, the son of Nur al-Din ‘Ali, the Egyptian. He also found the thousand dinars.
On reading the paper, he uttered a loud cry and fell down in a faint. When he recovered and grasped what this all meant, he was filled with wonder and exclaimed: ‘There is no god but God, Who has power over all things.’ Then he said: ‘Daughter, do you know who it was who deflowered you?’ ‘No,’ she replied. ‘It was my brother’s son, your cousin,’ he said, ‘and these thousand dinars are your dowry. Glory be to God, but I wish I knew how this came about.’ Then he reopened the amulet and in it he found a note in the handwriting of his brother Nur al-Din. After looking at his brother’s handwriting, he recited:
I see the traces they have left and melt with longing,
And I pour down my tears over their former dwellings.
I ask the One who afflicted me with separation
That one day He might favour me with their return.
On finishing these lines, Shams al-Din read through what was in the amulet and there he found the date of Nur al-Din’s marriage to the daughter of the vizier of Basra, its consummation, the date of Hasan’s birth, and an account of Nur al-Din’s life up until the time of his death. This astonished him; he trembled with joy and, on comparing what had happened to his brother with his own history, he found that they matched exactly, that the consummation of his marriage and that of his brother had happened on the same date, as had the birth of Hasan and that of his own daughter, Sitt al-Husn. Taking the paper, he brought it to the sultan and told him all that had happened from start to finish. The astonished sultan ordered that an account of this should be written down immediately.
Shams al-Din waited, expecting his nephew to come, but he did not come that day, or on the next, or on the third, and after seven days had passed, there was still no news of him. So Shams al-Din said: ‘By God, I shall do something that no one has ever done before,’ and taking an inkwell and a pen, he produced on a piece of paper a sketch plan of the whole house, with the alcove here, such-and-such a hanging there, and so on, including everything in the house. He then folded the paper and gave orders for all Hasan’s things to be collected. He took the turban, the tarboosh, the mantle and the purse, which he locked up in his own room with a lock of iron, setting a seal on it to await his nephew’s arrival.
As for his daughter, at the end of the months of her pregnancy, she gave birth to a boy, splendid as the moon, resembling his father in beauty, perfection, splendour and grace. The midwives cut the umbilical cord, spread kohl on his eyelids and then handed him over to the nurses, naming him ‘Ajib. In one day he grew as much as other children grow in a month, and in a month as much as they do in a year. When he was seven years old, he was handed over to a teacher who was told to give him a good education and to teach him to read. He stayed at school for four years, but he began to fight with the other children and abuse them, saying: ‘Which of you is my equal? I am the son of Shams al-Din of Egypt.’ The other children went together to the monitor to complain of his rough behaviour. The monitor told them: ‘When he arrives tomorrow, I’ll teach you something to say to him that will make him give up coming to school. Tomorrow, when he arrives, sit around him in a circle and say to each other: “By God, no one may play this game with us unless he can tell us the names of his mother and father.” Anyone who doesn’t know these names is a bastard and won’t be allowed to play.’
The next morning, they came to school and when ‘Ajib arrived, they surrounded him and said: ‘We are going to play a game but no one may join in with us unless he can tell us the names of his mother and father.’ They all agreed to this, and one of them said: ‘My name is Majid; my mother is ‘Alawiya and my father is ‘Izz al-Din.’ A second boy did the same and so did the others until it came to ‘Ajib’s turn. He then said: ‘My name is ‘Ajib; my mother is Sitt al-Husn and my father is Shams al-Din of Egypt.’ ‘By God,’ they said to him, ‘Shams al-Din isn’t your father.’ ‘Yes, he is,’ insisted ‘Ajib, and at that the boys laughed at him, clapped their hands, and said: ‘He doesn’t know who his father is; go away and leave us. We will only play with those who know their father’s name.’
At that, the children around him went off laughing and leaving him angry and choked with tears. The monitor told him: ‘We know that your grandfather, Shams al-Din, is not your father but the father of your mother, Sitt al-Husn; as for your own father, neither you nor we know who he is. The sultan married your mother to the hunchbacked groom, but a jinni came and slept with her and you have no father we know of. You won’t be able to compare yourself with the other boys in this school unless you find out who your father is, for otherwise they will take you for a bastard. You can see that the trader’s son knows his father, but although your grandfather is Shams al-Din of Egypt, as we don’t know who your father is, we say that you have no father. So act sensibly.’
When ‘Ajib heard what the monitor and the boys had to say and how they were insulting him, he went away immediately and came to his mother, Sitt al-Husn, to complain, but he was crying too hard to speak. When she heard his sobs, her heart burned and she said: ‘What has made you cry? Tell me.’ So he told her what he had heard from the children and from the monitor, and he asked her: ‘Who is my father?’ She said: ‘Your father is Shams al-Din of Egypt.’ But he said: ‘Don’t tell me lies. Shams al-Din is your father, not mine, so who is my father? If you don’t tell me the truth, I’ll kill myself with this dagger.’ When his mother heard him talk of his father, she burst into tears, remembering her cousin Hasan and how she had been unveiled for him and what he had done with her. She recited these lines:
They stirred up longing in my heart and left.
Those whom I love have now gone far away.
They left and with them has my patience gone.
After this loss, patience is hard to find.
They left, and were accompanied by my joy.
Nothing stays fixed; there is no fixity.
By leaving me, they brought tears to my eyes,
And thanks to this, my tears flow down in floods.
I yearn to see them, and for long
I have been yearning and awaiting them.
I call up pictures of them, and my inmost heart
Is home to passion, longing and to care.
Your memory has now become my cloak,
And under it I wear my love for you.
Beloved, for how long will this go on?
How long will you stay distant and shun me?
She wept and wailed, as did ‘Ajib, and at that point suddenly in came Shams al-Din. When he saw their tears, his heart was burned and he asked what was the reason for all this grief. Sitt al-Husn told him what had happened to ‘Ajib with the boys at his school, and Shams al-Din himself wept, remembering his brother and what had happened to the two of them, as well as what had happened to his daughter, the real truth of which he did not know. He then immediately got up and went to the court, where he came into the sultan’s presence and told him his story, asking leave to travel to the east in order to make enquiries about his nephew in Basra. He also asked the sultan to give him written instructions addressed to all lands, allowing him to take his nephew with him wherever he might be found. He then burst into tears before the sultan, who was moved with pity for him and wrote him the orders for which he had asked. This delighted Shams al-Din, who called down blessings on his master, and then took his leave.
He immediately went home and made his preparations for the journey, taking with him all that he, his daughter and ‘Ajib might need. They travelled day after day until they arrived at Damascus, which they found full of trees and watered by streams, as the poet has described it:
I passed a day and a night in Damascus, and Time swore
That with a city like this it could make no mistake.
I spent the night while night’s wing paid no heed,
And dawn was smiling with grey hair.
On the branches there dew gleamed like pearls,
Touched gently by the zephyr and then falling.
The pool was like a page read by the birds,
Written by wind, with clouds as punctuation.
Shams al-Din halted in the Maidan al-Hasa, where he pitched his tents, telling his servants that they would rest there for two days. For their part, they then went into the city to do as they pleased, one selling, one buying, one going to the baths and another to the Umaiyad Mosque, whose like is to be found nowhere in the world. ‘Ajib went out accompanied by a eunuch and they entered the city to look at the sights, with the eunuch walking behind holding a cudgel so heavy that were he to use it to strike a camel, the beast would never rise again. The people of Damascus looked at ‘Ajib, his well-formed figure, his splendour and his beauty, for he was a remarkably handsome boy with soft manners, more delicate than the northern breeze, sweeter than cold water to the thirsty man and more delightful than the recovery of health to the sick. As a result, he was followed by a large crowd, some running behind him and others going on ahead and sitting in the road looking at him as he passed.
This went on until, as had been decreed by fate, the eunuch stopped at the shop of his father Hasan. In the twelve years that he had spent in Damascus, Hasan’s beard had grown long and he had matured in intelligence. The cook had died and he had taken over his wealth and his shop, having been acknowledged before the judges and the notaries as his son. When ‘Ajib and the eunuch halted by his shop that day, Hasan looked at ‘Ajib, his son, and, taking note of how extremely handsome he was, his heart beat fast, blood sensed the pull of blood, and he felt linked to the boy by affection. He happened to have cooked a dish of sugared pomegranate seeds and as God had inspired him with love for his son, he called out to him: ‘My master, who has taken possession of my heart and for whom I yearn, would you enter my shop, mend my broken heart and eat of my food?’ Then, spontaneously, his eyes filled with tears and he thought of what he had been and what he now was.
As for ‘Ajib, when he heard what his father had said, he felt drawn to him. He told this to the eunuch, adding: ‘It is as though this cook is a man who has parted from his son. Let us go into his shop, so that we may comfort him and eat what he gives us as guests. It may be that, if I do this for him, God may unite me with my father.’ ‘A fine thing, by God!’ exclaimed the eunuch when he heard this. ‘Do viziers’ sons stay eating in a cookshop? I use this stick to keep people away from you lest they even look at you, and I shall never feel safe in letting you go in here.’ When Hasan heard this, he was astonished and turned to the eunuch with tears running down his cheeks, while ‘Ajib said: ‘My heart is filled with love for this man.’ ‘Don’t say that,’ the eunuch replied, ‘for you are never going in there.’ Hasan himself then turned to the eunuch and said: ‘Great one, why do you not mend my broken heart by entering my shop yourself, you who are like a chestnut, dark but with a white heart, you who fit the description of the poet?’ ‘What is this you say?’ said the eunuch, laughing. ‘Produce the description but keep it short.’ So Hasan started to recite these lines:
Were he not educated and reliable,
He would hold no office in the royal palace
Or be given charge of the harem. Oh what a servant,
Who, for his beauty, heavenly angels serve!
The eunuch was filled with admiration when he heard this and, taking ‘Ajib with him, he entered the shop. Hasan then ladled into a bowl an excellent mixture of pomegranate seeds, almonds and sugar and they both ate after Hasan had welcomed them, saying: ‘You have done me a favour, so enjoy your meal.’ ‘Ajib then said to his father: ‘Sit and eat with us, and it may be that God will bring us together with those whom we wish to meet.’ ‘My boy,’ said Hasan, ‘have you, young as you are, had to suffer the loss of dear ones?’ ‘Yes, uncle,’ replied ‘Ajib. ‘This has caused me bitter distress, and the one whom I have lost is my father. My grandfather and I have come to search for him through all the lands, and I am filled with sad longing for him.’ He then wept bitterly and his father wept because of his loss and because of the boy’s tears, remembering the loss of his own loved ones and his separation from his father and his mother, while the eunuch shared his sorrow. They then ate their fill, after which the two got up, and when they left the shop, Hasan felt as though his soul had parted from his body and gone with them.
He could not endure to be parted from them for the blink of an eye and so he locked up his shop and followed, without realizing that ‘Ajib was his son. He hurried on until he caught up with them before they had gone out of the main gate. The eunuch turned and asked what he wanted. ‘When you left my shop,’ replied Hasan, ‘I felt that my soul had gone with you and, as I have an errand in the suburbs outside the gate, I wanted to go with you, do my errand, and then go back.’ The eunuch was angry. ‘This is what I was afraid of,’ he told ‘Ajib. ‘The bite that we had to eat was unfortunate in that it has put us under an obligation, and here is that fellow following us from place to place.’ ‘Ajib turned, and finding Hasan walking behind him, he became angry and his face flushed red. To the eunuch he said: ‘Let him walk on the public road, but if, when we come out to our tents, we find that he is still following us, then we can drive him away.’
He then lowered his head and walked on, with the eunuch behind him and Hasan trailing them, as far as the Maidan al-Hasa. When they were close to the tents, they turned and saw him still behind them. ‘Ajib was afraid that the eunuch might tell his grandfather, and he became very angry for fear lest he be reported as having entered the cookshop and having been followed by the cook. So he turned and found Hasan’s eyes fixed on his, while Hasan himself looked like a body without a soul. To ‘Ajib it seemed as though his eyes were those of a pervert or that he was a debauchee, and so, in a fit of rage, he took a stone and hit his father with it, knocking him unconscious, with the blood running down over his face. He and the eunuch then went to the tents.
When Hasan recovered consciousness, he wiped away the blood, and after cutting off a strip of his turban, he bandaged his head. He blamed himself and said: ‘I wronged the boy by shutting up my shop and following him, making him think that I was a pervert.’ So he went back to the shop and went on selling his food, but he started to yearn for his mother in Basra and he recited in tears:
You wrong Time if you ask it to be fair.
Do not blame it; it was not created for fair dealing.
Take what comes easily and leave care aside.
Time must contain both trouble and happiness.
He carried on with his business, while his uncle, Shams al-Din, after spending three days in Damascus, left for Homs, which he entered, and while he was on his journey he made enquiries wherever he went. He went to Diyar Bakr, Mardin and Mosul, and he kept on travelling until he reached Basra. After entering the city and settling himself there, he went to the sultan. When they met, the sultan treated him with respect and honour and asked him the reason for his visit. Shams al-Din told him his story and that his brother was Nur al-Din ‘Ali. ‘May God have mercy on him,’ interjected the sultan, adding: ‘He was my vizier and I loved him dearly, but he died fifteen years ago. He left a son, but the son only stayed for a month after his death before going missing and we have never heard any more news of him, although his mother, the daughter of my old vizier, is still with us.’
When Shams al-Din heard that the mother of his nephew was well, he was delighted and told the sultan that he would like to meet her. Permission was immediately granted and he went to visit her in his brother’s house. He let his gaze wander around it, and kissing its threshold, he thought of his brother and of how he had died in exile. So he shed tears and recited these lines:
I pass by the dwellings, the dwellings of Laila,
And I kiss first one wall and then another.
It is not love for the dwellings that wounds my heart,
But love for the one who lived in them.
He passed through the door into a large hall where there was another door, arched and vaulted with flint inset with marble of different kinds and different colours. He walked through the house, and as he looked at it and glanced around, he found the name of his brother inscribed in letters of gold. He went up to the inscription, kissed it and wept as he remembered his separation from his brother. He then recited these lines:
Every time it rises, I ask the sun for news of you,
And I question the lightning about you when it flashes.
Longing folds and unfolds me in its hands
All night, but I do not complain of pain.
Dear ones, for long, after you went,
Separation from you has left me cut to pieces.
Were you to grant my eyes a sight of you –
It would be better still if we could meet.
Do not think I am busied with another;
My heart has no room for another love.
He then walked on until he reached the room of his brother’s widow, the mother of Hasan, who throughout her son’s disappearance had been weeping and wailing constantly, night and day. When long years had passed, she had made a marble cenotaph for him in the middle of the hall, where she would shed tears, and it was only beside this that she would sleep. When Shams al-Din came to her room, he heard the sound of her voice, and standing behind the door, he listened to her reciting:
In God’s Name, grave, are his beauties now gone,
And has that bright face changed?
Grave, you are neither a garden nor a sky,
So how do you contain both branch and moon?*
While she was reciting this, Shams al-Din came in. He greeted her and told her that he was her husband’s brother, and he then explained what had happened, giving her the full story, that her son Hasan had spent a whole night with his daughter ten years earlier and had then disappeared at dawn. ‘He left my daughter pregnant,’ Shams al-Din added, ‘and she gave birth to a son who is here with me, and he is your grandson, the son of your son by my daughter.’
When she looked at her brother-in-law and heard the news that her son was still alive, she got up and threw herself at his feet, kissing them and reciting:
How excellent is the man who brings good tidings of your coming!
He has brought with him the most delightful news.
Were he to be contented with a rag, I would give him
A heart that was torn in pieces when you said goodbye.
Shams al-Din then sent a message telling ‘Ajib to come, and when he did, his grandmother got up, embraced him and wept. ‘This is no time for tears,’ Shams al-Din told her. ‘This is the time for you to make your preparations to travel with us to Egypt, and perhaps God will allow us and you to join your son, my nephew.’ She agreed to leave and instantly got up to collect what she needed, together with her treasures and her maids. As soon as she was ready, Shams al-Din went to the sultan of Basra and took leave of him, while the sultan, in his turn, sent gifts and presents with him to take to the sultan of Egypt.
Shams al-Din then left immediately and travelled to Damascus, where he halted and pitched camp at al-Qanun. He told his entourage that they would stay there for a week so that they could buy gifts for the sultan. ‘Ajib went out, telling his servant, Layiq, that he wanted to look around the place, adding: ‘Come with me and we shall go down to the market and pass through the city to see what has happened to that cook whose food we ate and whose head I hurt. He had been kind to me and I harmed him.’ Layiq agreed and the two of them left the camp, ‘Ajib being drawn to his father by the ties of kinship.
After entering the city, they went on until they came to the cookshop, where they found Hasan. It was close to the time of the afternoon prayer and, as luck would have it, he had cooked a dish of pomegranate seeds. When they approached him, ‘Ajib looked at him with a feeling of affection, while noting the scar on his forehead left by the blow from the stone. He greeted Hasan affectionately, while, for his part, Hasan was agitated: his heart fluttered, he hung his head towards the ground and he tried without success to move his tongue around his mouth. Then looking up at his son, with meekness and humility he recited these lines:
I wished for my beloved, but when he came in sight,
In my bewilderment I could not control tongue or eyes.
I bowed my head in reverence and respect;
I tried to hide my feelings, but in vain.
I had whole reams of blame to give to him,
But when we met I could not speak a word.
Then he said to ‘Ajib: ‘Mend my broken heart and eat of my food. By God, when I look at you, my heart races and it was only because I had lost my wits that I followed you.’ ‘You must indeed be fond of me. I took a bite to eat with you, after which you followed me, wanting to bring shame on me. I shall only eat your food on condition that you swear not to come out after me or follow me again, for otherwise I shall never come back here, although we are staying for a week so that my grandfather can buy gifts for the sultan.’ Hasan agreed and ‘Ajib entered with his servant. Hasan presented them with a bowl of pomegranate seeds and ‘Ajib asked him to give them the pleasure of eating with him. He accepted gladly, but as his heart and body were concentrated on ‘Ajib, he kept staring fixedly at his face. ‘Ajib objected, saying: ‘Didn’t I tell you that you are an unwelcome lover, so stop staring at my face.’
When Hasan heard what his son said, he recited these lines:
You have a hidden secret in men’s hearts,
Folded away, concealed and not spread out.
Your beauty puts to shame the gleaming moon
While your grace is that of the breaking dawn.
The radiance of your face holds unfulfillable desires,
Whose well-known feelings grow and multiply.
Am I to melt with heat, when your face is my paradise,
And shall I die of thirst when your saliva is Kauthar?*
Hasan kept filling ‘Ajib’s plate and then that of the eunuch. They ate their fill and then got up. Hasan rose himself and poured water over their hands, after which he unfastened a silk towel from his waist on which he dried their hands before sprinkling them with rosewater from a flask that he had with him. Then he left his shop and came back with a jug of sherbet mixed with musk-flavoured rosewater, which he presented to them, saying: ‘Complete your kindness.’ ‘Ajib took it and drank, after which he passed it to the eunuch. They then drank from it in turns until their stomachs were full, as they had had more than usual.
After leaving, they hurried back to their camp, where ‘Ajib went to see his grandmother. She kissed him and then, thinking of her son, she sighed, shed tears and recited:
I hoped that we might meet, and, after losing you,
There was nothing for me to wish for in my life.
I swear that there is nothing in my heart except your love,
And God, my Lord, knows every secret thing.
She then asked ‘Ajib where he had been, to which he replied that he had gone into the city of Damascus. She got up and brought him a bowl of pomegranate seeds that had only been sweetened a little, and she told the eunuch to sit down with his master. ‘By God,’ said the eunuch to himself, ‘I have no urge to eat,’ but he sat down. As for ‘Ajib, when he took his seat, his stomach was full of what he had already eaten and drunk, but he took a morsel, dipped it among the pomegranate seeds and ate it. Because he was full, he found it undersweetened and he exclaimed: ‘Ugh, what is this nasty food?’ ‘My son,’ said his grandmother, ‘are you blaming my cooking? I cooked this myself and no one can cook as well as I can, except for your father Hasan.’ ‘By God, grandmother,’ replied ‘Ajib, ‘this dish of yours is disgusting. We have just come across a cook in the city who cooked a dish of pomegranate seeds whose smell would open up your heart. His food makes one want to eat again, while, in comparison, yours is neither one thing nor another.’
On hearing this, his grandmother became very angry and, looking at the eunuch, she reproached him, telling him that he had spoiled her son by taking him into a cookshop. The apprehensive eunuch denied this, saying: ‘We didn’t go into the shop but merely passed by it.’ ‘Ajib, however, insisted that they had gone in and had eaten, adding: ‘And it was better than your food.’ His grandmother got up and told her brother-in-law about this, turning him against the eunuch, who was then brought before him. ‘Why did you take my grandson into the cookshop?’ Shams al-Din asked. In his fear, the eunuch again denied this, but ‘Ajib insisted: ‘We did go in and we ate pomegranate seeds until we were full, after which the cook gave us a drink with snow and sugar.’ Shams al-Din became even angrier with the eunuch and asked him again. He again denied it, at which Shams al-Din said: ‘If you are telling me the truth, then sit down and eat in front of me.’ The eunuch came forward and tried to do this but failed and had to throw away what he had taken. ‘Master,’ he explained, ‘I am still full from yesterday.’ Shams al-Din then realized that he had indeed eaten in the cookshop. He ordered the slaves to throw him down, which they did, and he then started to beat him painfully. The eunuch called for help. ‘Don’t beat me, master,’ he cried, ‘and I’ll tell you the truth.’ After this, Shams al-Din stopped beating him and demanded the truth. ‘We did go into the shop,’ he said, ‘and the cook was preparing a dish of pomegranate seeds. He gave us some of it and, by God, never in my life have I tasted anything like it, while I have never tasted anything nastier than this stuff that is before us.’
Hasan’s mother was angry and told him: ‘You must go to this cook and fetch us a bowl of pomegranate seeds that he has prepared. You can then show it to your master and he can then say which is better and more tasty.’ The eunuch agreed and was given a bowl and half a dinar. He went to the shop and said to Hasan: ‘In my master’s house we have laid a bet on your cooking. They have pomegranate seeds there, so for this half dinar give me some of yours, and take care over it, for your cooking has already cost me a painful beating.’ Hasan laughed and said: ‘By God, this is a dish that nobody can cook properly except for my mother and me, and she is now in a distant land.’ He then ladled the food into the bowl and took it to put the finishing touches on it using musk and rosewater.
The eunuch carried it back quickly to the camp, where Hasan’s mother took it and tasted it. When she noted how flavoursome it was and how well it had been cooked, she realized who must have cooked it and gave a shriek before falling in a faint, to the astonishment of Shams al-Din. He sprinkled rosewater over her and after a time she recovered. ‘If my son is still in this world,’ she exclaimed, ‘it was he and no one else who cooked these pomegranate seeds. It has to have been my son, Hasan. No one else can cook it except him, for I taught him the recipe.’ When Shams al-Din heard this, he was overjoyed and exclaimed: ‘How I long to see my brother’s son! Will time unite me with him? But it is only from Almighty God that I may seek a meeting with him.’
He got up immediately and went to his escort, ordering twenty men to go the cookshop, demolish it, and tie up the cook with his own turban. ‘Then,’ he said, ‘drag him here by force, but without injuring him in any way.’ The men agreed to do this, and Shams al-Din himself rode immediately to the palace of the governor of Damascus, whom he met and to whom he showed the letters that he had brought with him from the sultan. The governor kissed them and then placed them on his head, before asking: ‘Where is the man you are looking for?’ ‘He is a cook,’ replied Shams al-Din, and the governor instantly ordered his chamberlains to go to his shop. They went and found the shop demolished with all its contents smashed, for when Shams al-Din had gone to the governor’s palace, his men had carried out his orders. They sat there waiting for him to return, while Hasan was asking: ‘What could they have seen in the dish of pomegranate seeds that led to all this?’
Shams al-Din returned with the governor’s permission to carry away Hasan. When he entered his tent, he ordered the cook to be produced and he was brought in, tied up with his own turban. Hasan wept bitterly on seeing his uncle and said: ‘Master, what offence do you charge me with?’ ‘Was it you,’ asked Shams al-Din, ‘who cooked these pomegranate seeds?’ ‘Yes,’ said Hasan, ‘and did you find anything in them that entitles you to cut off my head?’ ‘For you this would be the best and lightest punishment,’ said Shams al-Din. ‘Master,’ said Hasan, ‘are you not going to tell me what I did wrong?’ ‘Yes, immediately,’ said Shams al-Din, but he then called to the servants to bring the camels. They took Hasan with them, put him in a box, locked it and set off, travelling until nightfall. Then they halted and ate some food. They took Hasan out of his box, gave him something to eat and then put him back in it. They followed this pattern until they reached Qamra, when Hasan was taken out of his box and was again asked whether it was he who had cooked the pomegranate seeds. When he still said yes, Shams al-Din ordered him to be fettered, which was done and he was put back in the box.
The party then travelled on to Cairo, where they halted at the Raidaniya camping ground. Shams al-Din ordered Hasan to be taken out and he ordered a carpenter to be fetched whom he told to make a wooden cross. ‘What are you going to do with it?’ asked Hasan. ‘I will garrotte you on it and then nail you to it, before parading you around the whole city,’ Shams al-Din told him. ‘Why are you doing this to me?’ asked Hasan. ‘Because of your ill-omened cooking of the pomegranate seeds, for you cooked them without enough pepper,’ replied Shams al-Din. ‘Are you really doing all this to me because the dish lacked pepper?’ said Hasan. ‘Was it not enough for you to keep me shut up, giving me only one meal a day?’ ‘There was not enough pepper,’ said Shams al-Din, ‘and the only punishment for you is death.’ Hasan was both astonished and sorry for himself. ‘What are you thinking about?’ asked Shams al-Din. ‘About superficial minds like yours,’ replied Hasan, ‘for if you had any intelligence you would not treat me like this.’ ‘We have to punish you,’ said Shams al-Din, ‘so as to see that you don’t do this kind of thing again.’ ‘The least part of what you have done to me is a punishment,’ said Hasan, but Shams al-Din insisted that he must be strangled.
While all this was going on, the carpenter was preparing the wood before his eyes. This went on until nightfall when Shams al-Din took Hasan and threw him into the box, saying: ‘The execution will take place tomorrow.’ He then waited until he was sure that Hasan was asleep, when he got up, lifted the chest and, after mounting his horse, he placed the box in front of him. He entered the city and rode on until he came to his house. To his daughter, Sitt al-Husn, he said: ‘Praise be to God, Who has reunited you with your cousin. Get up and arrange the furnishings of the house as they were on your wedding night.’ The household was roused and the candles were lit, while Shams al-Din produced the paper on which he had drawn a plan showing how the furniture was to be arranged. Everything was put in its place, so that anyone looking at it would be in no doubt that this was as it had been on the actual wedding night.
Shams al-Din gave instructions that Hasan’s turban should be placed where he himself had left it, as should his trousers and the purse that was beneath the mattress. He then told his daughter to wear no more than she had been wearing when left alone with her bridegroom on her wedding night. ‘When your cousin comes in,’ he said, ‘tell him that he has been a long time in his visit to the latrine and then invite him to pass the rest of the night with you. Talk with him until daybreak, and I shall then explain the whole affair to him.’ Next, he took Hasan out of the chest, having first removed the fetters from his feet. He stripped off the clothes that he was wearing, so that he was left in a thin nightshirt with no trousers.
The sleeping Hasan knew nothing about what was happening, but, as fate had decreed, he turned over and woke up to find himself in a brilliantly lit hallway. ‘This is a confused dream,’ he said to himself, but he then walked a short way to a second door, and, on looking, he found himself in the room in which his bride had been unveiled for him. There was the alcove and the chair and he could see his turban and his other things. He was astonished at this sight and hesitated, moving forwards and then backwards. ‘Am I asleep or awake?’ he asked himself, wiping his forehead and saying in amazement: ‘By God, this is the room of the bride who was unveiled for me; but where am I, for I was in a box?’
While he was talking to himself, Sitt al-Husn suddenly lifted the bottom of the alcove curtain and said: ‘Master, are you not going to come in? You have been a long time in the latrine.’ When he heard her voice and looked at her face, he laughed and said: ‘I am in a confused dream.’ He went into the alcove, where he sighed, and, thinking over his experiences, he was filled with confusion, particularly at the sight of the turban, his trousers and the purse with the thousand dinars, and was at a loss to grasp what had happened. ‘God knows better,’ he said, ‘but this is a muddled dream.’ ‘What are you so astonished about?’ asked Sitt al-Husn. ‘You weren’t like that at the beginning of the night.’ Hasan laughed and asked: ‘How long have I been away from you?’ ‘Bless you,’ she said, ‘and may the Name of God encompass you, you left to attend to yourself and then come back. Are you out of your mind?’ Hasan laughed when he heard that and said: ‘You are right, but when I left you I took leave of my senses in the latrine and dreamt that I was a cook in Damascus and had been there for ten years, when a boy, a great man’s son, came in with a eunuch.’
At that, he rubbed his hand over his forehead and found the scar on it. ‘By God, lady,’ he said, ‘that almost seems to be true, because he struck me on the forehead and broke the skin, and it seemed as though I was awake at the time.’ He went on: ‘It was as though we had just gone to sleep in each other’s arms and then I had this dream and I appeared to have arrived in Damascus with no turban and no trousers and then worked as a cook.’ After remaining perplexed for a time, he said: ‘By God, I seemed to see that I had cooked a dish of pomegranate seeds and had put on too little pepper, but I suppose that I must have been asleep in the latrine and I must have seen all this in a dream.’ ‘What else did you see?’ asked Sitt al-Husn. Hasan told her, and then he said: ‘By God, if I had not woken up, they would have crucified me.’ ‘What for?’ she asked. ‘Because there was too little pepper on the pomegranate seeds,’ he replied. ‘It seemed as though they had wrecked my shop and broken up my utensils and put me in a box. Then they brought a carpenter to make a cross for me and they were going to garrotte me. Thank God that all this happened in a dream and not in real life.’ Sitt al-Husn laughed and clasped him to her breast as he clasped her to his, but then he thought for a while and said: ‘By God, it seemed as though it was real, but I don’t know why that should be.’ He was still perplexed when he fell asleep, muttering alternately ‘I was asleep’ and ‘I was awake’.
That went on until morning, when his uncle Shams al-Din came in and greeted him. Hasan looked at him and said: ‘By God, aren’t you the man who ordered me to be tied up and crucified and ordered my shop to be wrecked because there was not enough pepper on the pomegranate seeds?’ ‘Know, my son,’ said Shams al-Din, ‘that the truth is now revealed and what was hidden has been made clear. You are the son of my brother and I only did all this to make sure that it was you who slept with my daughter that night. I could only be certain of this because you recognized the room and recognized your turban and your trousers, your gold, the note that you wrote and the one that your father, my brother, wrote. For I had never seen you before and could not identify you. I have brought your mother with me from Basra.’ He then threw himself on Hasan in tears. When Hasan heard what his uncle had to say, he was lost in astonishment and, embracing his uncle, he wept from excess of joy.
‘The reason for all this,’ Shams al-Din told him, ‘was what happened between me and your father.’ He then told him the story of this and of why Hasan’s father, Nur al-Din, had gone to Basra. He sent for ‘Ajib, and when his father saw him, he said: ‘This is the one who hit me with the stone.’ ‘He is your son,’ Shams al-Din told him. Hasan threw himself on the boy and recited these lines:
I have wept over our separation, and for long
Tears have been pouring from my eyes.
I vowed, were Time to join us once again,
My tongue would never speak the word ‘parting’.
Delight has now launched its attack on me,
And my great joy has made me weep.
As soon as he had finished speaking, in came his mother, who threw herself on him and recited:
On meeting, we complained of the great suffering of which we speak.
It is not good to send complaints by messengers.
She then told him what had happened to her after he had vanished, and he told her of his own sufferings, and they then gave thanks to God for having reunited them. Two days after his arrival, Shams al-Din went to the sultan. On entering, he kissed the ground before him and greeted him with a royal salute. The sultan, who was glad to see him, smiled at him and told him to come nearer. He then asked him what he had seen in his travels and what had happened to him. Shams al-Din told him the story from beginning to end. ‘Praise be to God,’ said the sultan, ‘for the achievement of your desire and your safe return to your family and children. I must see your nephew, Hasan of Basra, so bring him to court tomorrow.’ Shams al-Din agreed to this – ‘If God Almighty wills’ – and then took his leave and went out. When he got home he told his nephew that the sultan wanted to see him. ‘The servant obeys the order of his master,’ said Hasan, and he accompanied his uncle to the sultan’s court. When he was in the sultan’s presence, he greeted him with the greatest respect and courtesy, and began to recite:
The one you have ennobled now kisses the ground,
A man whose quest has been crowned with success.
You are the lord of glory; those who rest their hope on you
Obtain what will exalt them in this world.
The sultan smiled, motioning him to sit, and so he took his seat near his uncle, Shams al-Din. The sultan then asked him his name, to which he replied: ‘The meanest of your servants is known as Hasan of Basra, and night and day he invokes blessings on you.’ The sultan was pleased with what he said and wanted to put his apparent knowledge and good breeding to the test. ‘Do you remember any poetry that describes a mole?’ he asked. ‘Yes,’ said Hasan, and he recited:
There is a dear one at the thought of whom
My tears fall and I wail aloud.
He has a mole, in beauty and in colour
Like the pupil of the eye or the heart’s core.
The sultan approved of these lines and courteously asked him to produce more. So he recited:
Many a mole has been compared to a musk grain,
But this comparison is not to be admired.
Rather, admire the face encompassing all its beauty,
So that no single part is missing from the whole.
The sultan rocked with delight and said: ‘Give me more, may God fill your life with blessing.’ Hasan then recited:
You, on whose cheek the mole
Is like a grain of musk set on a ruby,
Grant me your union, and do not be harsh,
You who are my heart’s wish and its nourishment.
‘Well done, Hasan,’ said the sultan. ‘You have shown great proficiency. Now explain to us how many meanings does the word khal, or “mole”, have in Arabic.’ ‘Fifty-eight,’ was his reply, ‘although some say fifty.’ ‘Correct,’ said the sultan, who then asked him if he knew how beauty can be particularized. ‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘It comprises brightness of face, clear skin, a well-shaped nose, sweet eyes, a lovely mouth, a witty tongue, an elegant frame and the qualities of refinement, while its perfection is found in the hair. The poet al-Shihab al-Hijazi has combined all these in a poem written in the rajaz metre:
Say, brightness is in the face; the skin is clear.
Let that be what you see.
Beauty is rightly ascribed to the nose,
While sweetness is attributed to eyes.
Yes, and men talk of mouths as beautiful.
Learn this from me, and may you not lack rest.
The tongue has wittiness and the frame elegance,
Whereas refinement lies in the qualities,
And perfect loveliness, they say, is in the hair.
Listen to my verse, and hold me free from blame.’
The sultan was pleased with what Hasan had said and felt well disposed towards him. He then asked him to explain the meaning of the proverbial expression ‘Shuraih is more cunning than the fox’. ‘Know, your majesty,’ replied Hasan, ‘may God Almighty aid you, that in the plague days Shuraih went to Najaf. Whenever he was going to pray, a fox would come and stand opposite him, imitating what he was doing and distracting him from his prayer. When that had gone on for a long time, one day he took off his shirt and put it on a cane, with its sleeves spread out. He then put his turban on top of the cane, tied a belt around the middle and set it up in the place where he prayed. The fox came up as usual and stood in front of it, at which Shuraih came up from behind and seized the animal. This is the explanation of the saying.’
When the sultan heard his explanation, he said to Shams al-Din: ‘This nephew of yours is a man of perfect breeding, and I do not believe that his match is to be found in all Egypt.’ Hasan rose, kissed the ground before the sultan, and took his seat like a mamluk in front of his master, and the sultan, delighted at having discovered the extent of his knowledge of the liberal arts, gave him a splendid robe of honour and invested him with an office that would help him to live well.
Hasan rose and, after kissing the ground again, he prayed for the sultan’s enduring glory, and then asked permission to leave with his uncle Shams al-Din. When this was granted, he left and he and his uncle returned home. Food was brought and after they had finished eating a pleasant meal, Hasan went to his wife’s apartment and told her what had happened to him in the sultan’s court. She said: ‘He is bound to make you one of his intimate companions and shower gifts and presents on you. By God’s grace, you are like a great light spreading the rays of your perfection, wherever you may be, on land or sea.’ He said to her: ‘I want to compose an ode in his honour, so as to increase the love that he feels for me in his heart.’ ‘A good idea,’ she agreed. ‘Produce good concepts and elegant expressions and I’m sure that he will find your poem acceptable.’
Hasan then went off by himself and wrote some well-formed and elegantly expressed lines. They ran as follows:
I have a heroic patron, soaring to the heights of greatness,
And treading on the path of generous and noble men.
His justice brings security to every land,
And for his enemies he has barred the path.
He is a lion, pious and astute;
If you call him king or angel, he is both.*
Those who ask him for favours are sent back rich.
There are no words to sum him up.
On the day of generosity, he is the shining dawn,
While on the day of battle, he is darkest night.
Our necks are fettered with his generosity,
And by his favours he masters the freeborn.
God grant us that he may enjoy long life,
Defending him from all that may bring harm.
When he had finished composing this piece, he sent it to the sultan with one of his uncle’s slaves. The sultan studied it with delight and read it out to those who were in attendance on him. They were enthusiastic in their praise, and the sultan summoned Hasan and told him when he came: ‘From this day on, you are my intimate companion, and I have decreed for you a monthly allowance of a thousand dirhams, in addition to what I have already assigned you.’ Hasan rose and thrice kissed the ground before the sultan, praying for his lasting glory and long life. From then on, he enjoyed lofty status; his fame spread throughout the lands, and he lived in the greatest comfort and ease with his uncle and his family until he was overtaken by death.
[Nights 20–24]